Former Liberian leader Taylor missing

Former Liberian leader and war crimes suspect Charles Taylor has disappeared from the villa in which he was living in exile in Nigeria, the Nigerian presidency said in a statement today.

The statement said Taylor had left his house in Calabar some time on Monday night and President Olusegun Obasanjo, who on Saturday had said that Mr Taylor would be handed back to Liberia, had set up a panel to investigate.

Mr Obasanjo's spokeswoman, Remi Oyo, added: "All the security people who were in charge of looking after Taylor have been arrested."

A five-member panel including a retired police chief and a representative of the United Nations Development Program would investigate who was responsible for the disappearance and "ascertain whether he escaped or was abducted."

Journalists who visited Taylor last week in his villa in the south-eastern city of Calabarsaw no evidence of any Nigerian security on the approach road to the house and were waved through the compound gates without questioning.

International prosecutors and human rights advocates had warned that if Mr Taylor were able to escape extradition to a UN-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone he might once again endanger the stability of west Africa.

The escape will also be an embarrassment to Mr Obasanjo on the eve of a visit to Washington to meet President George W Bush, as the United States this week urged Nigeria to ensure that Taylor will face trial for his alleged atrocities.

On Monday, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said of Taylor: "He needs to be brought to justice. It is incumbent upon the Nigerian government now to see that he is conveyed to the international court.

"Obviously, we have talked to President Obasanjo about this," he added.

Earlier, the chief prosecutor at Sierra Leone's war crimes court had expressed concern that Taylor might try to escape justice.

"The watching world will wish to see Taylor held in Nigerian detention to avoid the possibility of him using his wealth and associates to slip away," prosecutor Desmond Da Silva said, in a statement released in Freetown.

In August 2003, Mr Obasanjo invited Taylor to step down as president of Liberia and accept exile in Nigeria in order to allow a 14-year-old civil war to come to an end and enable a UN-backed peace process to begin.

Since then, however, he has come under increasing pressure to send Taylor to face trial Liberia's neighbour Sierra Leone.

Taylor is accused of masterminding a policy of murder, torture, pillage and rape in the 1990s in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where prosecutors have lodged a 17-count indictment alleging crimes against humanity.

On Saturday, Mr Obasanjo said that after receiving a request from Liberia's new president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and consulting with other African leaders he had agreed that Liberia could "take Taylor into custody".

But Nigeria offered no explanation of how Liberia could do that, and Ms Sirleaf said on Monday that she would prefer that the Libyan-trained former guerrilla chief be extradited directly to Sierra Leone.

Taylor's allies have warned in recent weeks that any attempt to prosecute him could lead to chaos in his former homeland, where some of his allies still pose a threat to law and order under Ms Sirleaf's elected rule.